Our 9th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday, June 29th, was our 9th wedding anniversary.  I usually do a post for our anniversary about how much we've learned or how we met or what we've done in the past however many years.  But this year is special.  This year I have a working scanner! That means we get to take a trip down memory lane and write about the actual wedding!  So brace yourself for lots of pictures and perhaps some mushy details.  


The first thing you have to know about our wedding is that it was planned in 8 weeks, mostly by my mom.  The first two weeks after we got engaged I was going to school full time.  The entire 8 weeks that we were engaged, I was performing the lead in a local production of 'The Pirates of Penzance' on Mondays, Fridays, & Saturdays with a few rehearsals in between.  And when I wasn't at school or in the play I was usually in Las Vegas visiting Nate because, let's be honest, I just couldn't stay away! So the bulk of the wedding planning fell to my amazing mother.  I picked out the colors and my dress and the pattern for the bridesmaids' dresses and the invitations, but that was about it.  Oh, and I did pick out the flowers as well.  But picking things out is the easy part.  My mom had to do the rest and she did a great job.  
Another thing you should know is that our wedding was definitely on a budget.  I didn't really care about having some big fancy affair.  I just wanted something simple and beautiful.  
So, let's start with the night before because that's a really good story.  Friday, June 28th, was my final performance in Pirates.  Some of the family came to the performance and then we went to my aunt and uncle's for ice cream sundaes.  It was around 1:00am when Nate drove me home.  He got pulled over for bunny hopping a stop sign on a road with absolutely no other traffic.  Well, except the cop who was lurking in the shadows.  I think I finally got to bed around 2 or 3 in the morning.  Then I had to be at the salon at 7:00am to have my hair done. 
After I got all beautified, we headed to the Bountiful Temple for the wedding.  My mom insisted on driving me rather than letting me ride with Nate.  Before the sealing, our sealer took us aside to educate us on what types of kisses were and were not appropriate in the temple.  I thought that was odd.  Even better, he thought that Nate was only 19 and gave him a brief "Are you sure you want to do this? You should serve a mission first." speech.  You'll understand when you see the pictures in a minute.  He definitely looks young.  
I don't remember a lot about the actual sealing.  I was too love struck and just remember seeing Nate across the alter and thinking "Here is my eternity."  We didn't do a ring ceremony because Nate didn't realize he was supposed to bring the wedding ring to the wedding.  Yeah, I know.  I don't get it either.  
Anyway, we got all dressed up and had pictures taken at the temple.  Then we had a small lunch at a local chapel.  Nate's mom took care of feeding everyone and it was fun to just relax and visit.  After lunch we had about an hour and a half before the reception.  I was so exhausted that I took a short nap.  
Our reception was held on the property of the grandparents of my friend Erin.  They own a nursery in Farr West and had this beautiful little garden space right next to it.  It was right off the freeway making it easy to find, had plenty of parking, was a beautiful little setting, and best of all they let us use it for free.    Like I said, we just had a simple reception.  Some of the highlights included me getting a fabulous sunburn on my neckline from standing in the reception line all evening, accidentally grabbing the best man's behind because I thought it was Nate, lots and lots of family and friends, Nate being paranoid that someone would "decorate" his Hyundai Santa Fe (which they started to and then he caught them and gave them one of his looks and they didn't dare do any more to it), cake, cake, and more cake, pictures, and throwing the bouquet and the garter.  
After the reception we got changed and ready to head to the Little America in Salt Lake for the night.  But first, Nate insisted on washing the Santa Fe.  Yes, it was that important to him.  I'm not going to share what happened the rest of the evening*wink,wink*.    Although I will give a shout out to the Pizza Hut delivery guy who had the worst timing in the world.  
So that's the story of our wedding.  Now for some pictures of the blessed event.  

The Happy Couple outside of the Bountiful Temple

My bridesmaids and my little cousin Natalie.  From left to right: Julieann Stark, Erin Barnett, Sarah Culbertson, Amanda Barnum, Rachel Culbertson.  Amanda's dress was sewn by my mother-in-law, Wendy, and the others were sewn by my mom.  Wendy also made the pretty garlands for their hair and I didn't even ask her to.  They add the perfect touch!

The Bride

The Groom   (see how young he looks?!)

See what I mean about the great setting? 

Happily Ever After!  That's how you do it!

RAGNAR? Yikes!

I mentioned a while back that I've taken up running a little bit.  Well, I don't know if you could really call it running.  It's more like jogging at slightly more than a snail's pace compared to people who are real, true blue "runners".  I usually run 2 to 3 times a week and average between 2 and 4 miles per run.  
Well, a guy in our ward does quite a bit of running and put together a team for the Las Vegas RAGNAR relay race in October.  I think I must be crazy, because I decided to be on it!  This is where the "Yikes!" from the title comes in.  
So, what is a RAGNAR relay?  It's a very long relay race, 188 miles.  This one is from Lake Mead to Las Vegas.  Each team has 12 runners and each runner does 3 legs of the race.  When you're not running, you're in a van with your teammates.  I've been assured that there are legs of the race that are easy/moderate and between 5 to 8 miles that I can do.  If you want to learn more about the RAGNAR, you can go to the Las Vegas RAGNAR website. 
They have a suggested training schedule that I'm following and I'm excited about this adventure, but I have to admit that I'm a little freaked out.  I've never done anything like this before and I'm a bit surprised at myself for agreeing to it.  But there's no backing out now and I don't want to anyway. So wish me luck! 
 

Our weekend "camping" trip

Nate had last Friday, Saturday, & Sunday off, which is an extremely rare thing.  We decided kind of at the last minute that we wanted to head down to the St. George area and go camping.  We wanted to go to Zion's National Park.  So I checked online and all the campsites that you can reserve were full.  There are about 150 walk up campsites that are first come, first served.  After calling down to the park information people, we were reassured that if we got there first thing in the morning, we'd likely get a place to camp.  
So we loaded up the car and headed down the road at about 4:30 Friday morning.  Yes, we took the car.  It gets twice the mileage that our Jeep Commander gets.  And yes, Nate fit everything in that trunk including our tent, four sleeping bags, our cooler, two backpacks, one suitcase, one box of firewood, one big box of camping cooking gear, and a port-a-potty.  Impressed?  You totally should be.  That man is a packing genius!  
Anyway, the drive down went smoothly enough until we got to Zion's and lo and behold every single camping space was taken.  It was 9:30 in the morning for crying out loud!  I guess that's what we get for not calling ahead.  We decided to drive through the park since we were there.  The scenery was absolutely beautiful!  We drove through the long tunnel.  The kids loved that part.  They yelled things out the windows to hear their own echo.  
After the drive we decided we'd better get going if we were going to find a camping spot anywhere else.  Well, after driving to 4 or 5 different campgrounds and being turned away at all of them, we threw in the towel.  It was now about 4:00 in the afternoon and we were all hot and tired and hungry.  It's a good thing that Nate has relatives in St. George.  His aunt and uncle were out of town for the weekend and let us sleep  at their house.  They live next door to Nate's Grandpa Barnum and take care of him.  Nate's sister had been staying there while they were away, but she had to go back to Las Vegas to take an exam and decided that since we were there, she didn't need to come back.  It was good to spend time with Grandpa.  We took him with us to get shakes at Iceberg and took him to lunch at Chuck-A-Rama.  We spent our weekend playing in the yard and at the park, seeing a movie, visiting the St. George temple, and napping.  
While it definitely wasn't the relaxing, nature-filled weekend that we had envisioned, it turned out nice.  I especially enjoyed reading some of Nate's grandparents' personal histories.  His grandmother was an excellent record keeper.  She kept journals and wrote down hers and her husband's life histories.  We didn't get to read them all the way through, but it was fascinating to read about Grandpa's experiences in WWII and Grandma's life and challenges and both of their faith.  

Loading up bright and early.

Lilly was just so happy to finally be out of the car!

This is what Jayne was doing by the time we finished driving through Zion's.

Lilly thought Grandpa's flowers were so pretty that she just had to have her picture taken by them. 

Jonah showed off his Frisbee skills at the park.

Swinging the day away.

St. George Temple

We're planning another camping trip in a few weeks.  This time we've got reservations.  =)  Wish us luck with that one!